About the author:
Read more about Barbara O’Connor’s books at barbaraoconnor.com. Detailed Biography Barbara O’Connor was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina. “I have fond and vivid memories of eating the boiled peanuts my grandmother made from the peanuts in her garden, picnicking in the Smoky Mountains, and catching crawfish and minnows in the creeks near my house.” After graduating from the University of South Carolina, Barbara headed west to Southern California. After taking a class in writing for children at UCLA, she was hooked. A few years and more than a few rejections later, she sold her first children’s book and has been writing ever since. Barbara left sunny California for snowy New England, where she spent 26 years before returning to the South. She currently lives with her husband and two dogs in Asheville, North Carolina, surrounded by the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. She spends her days drawing on her childhood memories to create her stories, settings, and characters. “Sometimes my characters eat boiled peanuts,” Barbara says. “Sometimes they go to the Smoky Mountains. Maybe they see kudzu vines covering up barns or listen to church music on the radio inside their trailers. They might catch crawfish in an icy cold stream or eat pickle okra from a jar. My stories have pieces of me in them—all mixed in with the made-up parts. That’s what writers do—mix in the real stuff with the made-up stuff.”
Click the book cover to view a 1:55 minute book trailer.
Greetings from Nowhere
Summary:
Aggie isn’t expecting visitors at the Sleepy Time Motel in the Great Smoky Mountains. Since her husband died, she is all alone with her cat, Ugly, and keeping up with the bills and repairs has become next to impossible. The pool is empty, the garden is overgrown, and not a soul has come to stay in nearly three months. When she reluctantly places a For Sale ad in the newspaper, Aggie doesn’t know that Kirby and his mom will need a room when their car breaks down on the way to Kirby’s new reform school. Or that Loretta and her parents will arrive in her dad’s plumbing company van on a trip meant to honor the memory of Loretta’s birth mother. Or that Clyde Dover will answer the For Sale ad in such a hurry and move in with his daughter, Willow, looking for a brand-new life to replace the one that was fractured when Willow’s mom left. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that Aggie and her guests find just the friends they need at the shabby motel in the middle of nowhere.
From an author long recognized for her true Southern voice and heartfelt characters, Greetings from Nowhere, with its four intertwining stories, brings Barbara O’Connor’s work to a new level of sophistication.
Hardcover, 208 pages
Click the Audio Player to hear the author pronounce her name.
Author's website: http://www.barboconnor.com/
About the author:
Read more about Barbara O’Connor’s books at barbaraoconnor.com. Detailed Biography Barbara O’Connor was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina. “I have fond and vivid memories of eating the boiled peanuts my grandmother made from the peanuts in her garden, picnicking in the Smoky Mountains, and catching crawfish and minnows in the creeks near my house.” After graduating from the University of South Carolina, Barbara headed west to Southern California. After taking a class in writing for children at UCLA, she was hooked. A few years and more than a few rejections later, she sold her first children’s book and has been writing ever since. Barbara left sunny California for snowy New England, where she spent 26 years before returning to the South. She currently lives with her husband and two dogs in Asheville, North Carolina, surrounded by the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. She spends her days drawing on her childhood memories to create her stories, settings, and characters. “Sometimes my characters eat boiled peanuts,” Barbara says. “Sometimes they go to the Smoky Mountains. Maybe they see kudzu vines covering up barns or listen to church music on the radio inside their trailers. They might catch crawfish in an icy cold stream or eat pickle okra from a jar. My stories have pieces of me in them—all mixed in with the made-up parts. That’s what writers do—mix in the real stuff with the made-up stuff.”
Click the book cover to view a 1:55 minute book trailer.
Summary:
Aggie isn’t expecting visitors at the Sleepy Time Motel in the Great Smoky Mountains. Since her husband died, she is all alone with her cat, Ugly, and keeping up with the bills and repairs has become next to impossible. The pool is empty, the garden is overgrown, and not a soul has come to stay in nearly three months. When she reluctantly places a For Sale ad in the newspaper, Aggie doesn’t know that Kirby and his mom will need a room when their car breaks down on the way to Kirby’s new reform school. Or that Loretta and her parents will arrive in her dad’s plumbing company van on a trip meant to honor the memory of Loretta’s birth mother. Or that Clyde Dover will answer the For Sale ad in such a hurry and move in with his daughter, Willow, looking for a brand-new life to replace the one that was fractured when Willow’s mom left. Perhaps the biggest surprise of all is that Aggie and her guests find just the friends they need at the shabby motel in the middle of nowhere.
From an author long recognized for her true Southern voice and heartfelt characters, Greetings from Nowhere, with its four intertwining stories, brings Barbara O’Connor’s work to a new level of sophistication.
Hardcover, 208 pages